Passage to Glory: Part Two of the Redemption Cycle

by J. R. Lawrence

  “All right,” he said to Maaha, “But this doesn’t mean I trust you.”

  Maaha feigned a frown at him.

  Shaking his head, Dril moved forward. “We will attack these guards completely by surprise,” he said to them as they followed round him. “They will never know we were coming.”

  Tyla looked to the left, behind the tower and toward the stalagmites housing the inhabitants of the city, thinking of all those innocent people living peacefully within. Well, peaceful might have been incorrect to say. There hadn’t been a real peace in all the Shadow Realms for many decades. In fact, she couldn’t recall ever experiencing a time of peace. Was that for all lands, or just in the Shadow Realms? And then she remembered what Dril’ead had said about their origin. Could he be correct?

  Candles flickered from windows in the hollowed stalagmites, and the four companions watched their lights with a strange fascination. It looked so strange...

  “The sun,” Yaldaa said softly. She pointed with her crossbow toward the stalagmite houses. “Was it a lot like those there?”

  Tyla frowned. Was there even a sun?

  “I cannot say,” Dril answered. “Never have I seen or been upon the surface.”

  Tyla looked sidelong at Dril’ead. They were close to the citadel now. “Dril’ead,” she said, “than how do you know it exists?”

  Dril shook his head. “I don’t,” he said. “But something has got to be above us.”

  “Quiet now,” Maaha told them. “They can still hear us.”

  The guards stood in two rows at either side of the door, facing the wide expanse between them and the city of Vulzdagg.

  What could they be thinking? Dril wondered silently. That was once my city... once.

  I am sorry, Dril’ead Vulzdagg.

  Dril looked up in sudden surprise at the face of Maaha, recognizing the voice inside his head as her own. You can hear me think?

  Of course I can! I’m a witch, aren’t I?

  Well, that is surprising... He hesitated, being careful what he would think next, and then realized something. I’m not sure I have the heart to forgive you yet.

  I never asked for your forgiveness, Dril’ead. Only that you know that I am sorry.

  I do not know that I can believe that yet, either.

  Well, then at least know that I said it to you.

  You thought it to me.

  Is there a difference?

  ... I’m not sure.

  Then it does not matter.

  And then they stopped. Maaha held up her hand to stop them, and motioned for Dril’ead to focus on the guards at the gate. He looked toward them, and slowly he unsheathed his other sword, and then brought both duel scimitars up before himself. Yaldaa, at his left, lifted her crossbow and aimed at one of the guards. Tyla and Maaha, both standing to his right, summoned wands to their hands; Maaha’s glowed red, and Tyla’s glowed blue.

  “Pick your targets,” Dril whispered for only them to hear.

  “Once we attack, the spell will diminish, leaving us in their sight,” Maaha said. “I shall blast the center, knocking all six of them down, and Tyla and Yaldaa will have a chance to take several clear shots before they reorient themselves.”

  “Sounds good,” Dril replied. “Whenever you’re ready…”

  “Attack them now!” Maaha cried, and she stepped forward. Lifting her wand above her head she summoned an orange orb and launched it toward the middle of the six guards.

  The explosion knocked them to the ground, one nearest even flipping head-over-heels to land on his face a good ways away from where he had been standing. Yaldaa’s crossbow clicked as a dart whistled into the chest of another as he began to pick himself up, dazed and in shock, and Tyla sent three orbs of green directly into the chests of three separate soldiers, blasting them backward off their feet.

  The last rolled onto his knees and began to crawl away, a stream of smoke trailing from his backside, but Dril’ead was already running before Yaldaa had sent her orbs forward. His sword dove down for the neck of the startled guardsman, and jumping over the body he felt the blade make its cut. Turning away from the decapitated corpse he faced the doors of the citadel.

  He charged forward, sensing the commotion within, and the doors opened as if to make way for his approach. But a dozen guardsmen poured out, all roaring a battle cry as they hefted spears and hurled them toward the charging warrior, though none came near enough to hit him.

  Yaldaa crouched and leveled her crossbow, firing darts into the outpour of Swildagg fighters, and each one she aimed for stumbled and fell on their face. But an unexpected group of swordsmen came out from their hiding place behind the tower, and charged with vigor upon Dril’ead as he stood at the gate of the tower, fighting off those who tried to oppose his passing in. Maaha lifted her wand and sent another orange orb into those newcomers from behind the tower, and it landed right in front of their charge, blowing them backward into one another.

  “Dril’ead, step back for a moment!” Tyla commanded the warrior, and he stepped backward from the mass of swords and spears as they came at him.

  Tyla initiated her attack, summoning a bright orb of white light, and then launching it beneath the arch of the gateway. The soldiers screamed as the light burned their sensitive eyes, and they retreated from the doorway to escape its unbearable brightness. Dril, however, had sent the attack before it was launched. He had prepared himself, covering up in his cloak, and now had an advantage over blinded fighters.

  He fell upon them with whirring blades, cutting this way and that, spinning his swords in his hands. Darts whizzed past his head, hitting those nearby him, and Yaldaa reloaded to fire again. Maaha, standing beside her, lifted her wand once more to deliver another blow to those coming in behind Dril’s charge, and bodies were thrown carelessly through the air to be broken against stalagmites and boulders.

  And then Tyla went forward. She raised her wand and launched to launch an orb here and there, always ready for those who noticed her and came forward, only to be blown backward in a heap of steaming armor. And then the spearmen turned upon Maaha and Yaldaa as they stood to the side, unnoticed for the first confusing stage of the battle, suddenly realizing where the magical attacks were coming from.

  Yaldaa rose and ducked to the side as a spear was thrown at her, and Maaha swiftly eliminated that soldier with a blast of energy. A dozen more spears were hurled at them, but Maaha promptly threw a shield up over them, receiving the spears into bursts of flame.

  “I am running short on darts,” Yaldaa told the Zurdagg.

  Maaha looked down at her. “Unfortunately there is no spell for a refill on darts,” she replied. “But one can always improvise!”

  Maaha Zurdagg drew in a breath, taking in a load of energy from those around her (and Yaldaa felt her strength diminish for the split of a second) and then released it into a burst of powerful air. Chips of rock were thrown up from the ground as it passed over in a wave, and those soldiers massing around Tyla and Dril’ead was taken from their feet and hurled backward away from them.

  “Now come, Yaldaa, we shall crush this tower!” Maaha ran forward, throwing her shield aside into a group of Swildagg soldiers as they were trying to regroup, smashing them to the cracked ground. “That blast should’ve weakened the earth enough to allow the tower to be consumed in its depths, once I and Tyla have shattered its foundations completely!”

  Yaldaa followed the powerful mage as she ran toward Dril’ead and Tyla, the Swildagg and the Vulzdagg now standing side by side as they slowly approached the doorway of the citadel.

  Maaha called to the mage. “Tyla, be sure your sister has not laid any last defensive shield to blow us to pieces!”

  Tyla nodded curtly, and then ran up to the archway of the door. Several soldiers groaned as they rolled onto their sides, some of them sitting up and reaching for their weapons, not yet giving up the fight. Dril’ead promptly kicked one such fighter in the face, throwing him back onto his back. Yaldaa shot a dar
t into one who had feigned his death, and was then sitting up as Dril’ead passed over him, lifting a dagger at his back.

  Once Tyla had checked for any magical barrier, discovering no such wall to halt their progress, Dril’ead rushed within and readied himself for an expected onslaught of vicious warriors. But no such attack came.

  “That was odd,” Yaldaa remarked. “I’ve never seen such careless defense as those outside. They charged upon Dril’ead like animal, almost mindless, hardly heeding Maaha and Tyla blowing them to pieces as they came upon you.”

  Maaha considered the quiet ranger at her side. “I do believe she’s right,” she said. “It was odd.”

  “That’s what happens when you allow the deep hatred of another fill your mind, control your body, and think that you hate them as well,” Dril said. “I believe that is the case of Swildagg, and those of Grundagg who follow the Shadow Queen.”

  “I believe he is right as well,” Maaha said pointedly.

  “He is,” Tyla said. “I felt the anger of the Shadow Queen. It was mindless. She must be a great fool.”

  “She is,” Maaha replied, “Though a very devious one.”

  “You’ve met her?” Dril’ead asked, turning round to consider his old enemy with narrowing eyes.

  “I have had knowledge of her throughout my entire life,” Maaha replied. “In order to become as expert a mage as I am, to have unlimited knowledge and power in the workings of the strange art of magic, one must acquaint oneself with the powers of the heavens and the earth – hell included.”

  Yaldaa looked up at the mage curiously. “So you have met her?” she asked.

  “I have seen her on several occasions,” Maaha answered, “Through visions, of course.”

  “Of course you have,” Dril growled, “You’re a traitor and a murderer. For all we know, you could have brought all this upon us!”

  “I have done no such thing,” Maaha replied calmly.

  “Whoever brought it, whether it was Maaha or not, we must stop it,” Tyla said to them.

  Dril forced his eyes away from Maaha, trying to push away his pride. “Yes,” he said, “We will stop it.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Maaha said, and they all turned cautious glances her way, Dril’ead instinctively raising his swords. “She cannot be stopped. Not now. Not here. Not yet. But in time, perhaps, that chance may come.”

  “So what are we here for?” Yaldaa asked.

  “Vengeance,” Dril’ead replied. “To defy her power and her might, all her false glory, in the face of her greatest servant. And then to die for something worth dying for!”

  “More or less,” Maaha put in. “But, I must say, it is a good reason to die.” And then she laughed, her shoulders shaking as it came straight from her belly, and a broad smile crinkled her face. “Look at us, the last remnants of an order now abandoned for greater power, talking of death as if it were the next best thing! It makes me laugh. And, I can assure you all, I have not felt such joy in the longest of times.”

  “Really,” Dril’ead said, smiling wryly at her, “I would have expected you to say never.”

  Maaha laughed again, her eyes set on the warrior, and she felt a strange love for the young fighter. A love she had never before experiences. A feeling of a willing sacrifice, and knowing, that if it were possible, she would die for his safety.

  Funny, she thought to herself. Once I wanted this boy dead. Now I am willing to die for him. How funny.

  A sudden trembling filled the chamber, shaking the earth and causing a rumble to echo out into the various caverns, and the four companions looked to one another in grave understanding. Laughter erupted from the chamber of the Circle of Power to the side, hid behind closed doors, and the laughter, unlike Maaha’s warm emotion, was crisp and forbidding. It came from an insane priestess of the Shadow Queen. Alastra’s power was yet to be revealed, they all knew.

  Tyla turned on the two thrones set upon the dais, raising her wand above her head, and with a cry of defiance she launched an orb of bright green between the two seats. The thrones crumbled to either side, broken stone melting beneath them, and the wrathful mage turned to face the doors to the Circle of Power with her stunned companions.

  “Now is the time for fealty!” she hissed.

  24

  Redemption

  Alastra turned from her brother, facing the circle of the Circle of Power, and raised both arms above her head to take control of the strange orb once more. She moved her arms forward, and the orb floated over to hover above the center of the circle, and then dropped it to the ground. It exploded on the ground, thousands of tendrils breaking loose from one another and splaying out across the surface of the ring, and then grasping for the edges as they began to form into the shape of a magnificent spider web. Silver threads connected along the edge of the circle, and then smaller tendrils linked each thread to the other by creating smaller and smaller circles, until there was no long any room in the very center. It was to the center that Alastra walked.

  “They come for you, brother,” she said once reaching the midst of the ring, turning round to look at his helpless body held in place above the ground. “The few survivors of our traitors are coming for you, perhaps to save you, perhaps to kill you, I cannot say for certain. But they will not make it.”

  Nel’ead couldn’t look at her. She was no longer his sister. She was a monster, and nothing more, nothing less. An object used in the hands of a wicked Shadow Queen. He shut his eyes, accepting the pain that flowed through his body, knowing that it was what he deserved.

  I failed, he told himself. I could have stopped this from happening. But I failed. I was too weak... I am too weak!

  “Elemni dead,” Alastra announced. “He was too weak. His faith in the Shadow Queen was uncertain. He failed in his duty to build the foundations of this new empire. But it does not matter. Such sacrifices must be bearable.”

  Nel’ead felt beads of sweat drip down his face. Elemni was a fool to even try! I am a fool!

  Alastra burst into sudden laughter. “They have come even as our forces move forth into the region of Grundagg! They are all the more foolish to do so. They’re faith in themselves is too weak, they cannot hope to defeat the might of the Shadow Queen alone. They will need the blessings of a god!”

  Nel’ead could no longer bear it. How could he?

  “And you, Nel’ead, will die there with no hope for this people whom you failed to save,” Alastra said to him. “You will die without hope, without honor, and without respect. You will perish, and your people will fall behind you. How could you have ever hoped to save them?”

  “Enough!” he cried, though his voice was weak, and it broke even as he spoke.

  “They come for you,” she said, smiling cruelly up at him. “But they shall not receive you.”

  She broke out into laughter. Her voice was crisp, full of a strange energy, all of it insanity. Nel’ead knew it. She was insane. What had happened to his sister?

  An explosion outside the doors caught both of their attention, though Alastra’s smile only widened.

  Slowly the doors began to open, creaking on their tired hinges, a light from outside spewing into the dark chamber. And though Nel’ead could not see what was behind him, he knew who had come.

  “In the name of the all great and all powerful Urden’Dagg, we command you to release Nel’ead Swildagg!” Dril’ead Vulzdagg’s voice sounded from the doors, loud and booming.

  Alastra grinned at his coming. “But the Urden’Dagg has no more authority here,” she said coolly.

  “Put Nel’ead down now, Alastra!” Tyla’s voice ordered from the door also.

  “There have been enough of your evil workings in these lands, child of Swildagg,” said a voice unfamiliar to Nel’ead, the voice of Maaha Zurdagg.

  “Put him down,” Dril commanded.

  “As you wish,” Alastra replied. With a wave of her hand the power holding Nel’ead aloft gave way, and he fell from the air to b
e caught in the hold of another power, though this one did not threaten harm. “I must say, Dril’ead Vulzdagg, this is a surprise. I thought that the demon had destroyed you. Apparently Tyla’s honesty and loyalty to me has been as much a lie as Nel’ead’s.”

  “You are the liar, Alastra!” Tyla retorted.

  “Am I?” Alastra said. “I thought that throughout all this time I had been perfectly honest with all of you. It is in your heads, those lies and deceives. You of all people, Maaha Zurdagg, should know of such things.”

  Maaha shifted uncomfortably, but held her wand poised for a strike. Beside her Tyla held Nel’ead, and slowly she was pulling the battered warrior toward them. Yaldaa loaded a dart into her crossbow and raised it to her shoulder, aiming directly at Alastra’s throat, waiting for a signal to shoot. But Dril’ead gave no such signal. He stepped forward, swords held up in readied position, ready for a fight.

  “Maaha knows no more of such tricks,” Dril’ead replied. “She is greater now. Stronger than you shall ever be, not with that power you claim to be of mighty strength.”

  “You speak blasphemy against the Shadow Queen,” Alastra said. Her eyes narrowed and her smile vanished, replaced with a dangerous glare. “She demands death for those who speak in such ways!”

  She struck out suddenly, throwing her arm out toward Dril’ead, a line of orange light spreading down the length of her arm to her fingers. Dril’ead could not have known what would’ve happened next, but he felt the surge of power course through the ground, aiming directly for him. But the click of a crossbow came a split second before the attack could complete itself, and it curved to the side instead, Alastra changing its direction midway and hurling the powerful blow right into Yaldaa’s neck – where the ranger had been aiming at Alastra.

  Yaldaa grunted, the sound of a crossbow hitting the ground came a second later, and Dril turned slowly – painfully – to see the Grundagg ranger hit the floor.

  “You have made a terrible mistake!” Maaha screamed, and she lunged forward with her wand, sending a wave of energy straight toward Alastra, a seared dart hitting the floor at her feet.